Eyeing The Prey

Daddy Knows Best

Buchmann Porsche Porsche 930 Turbo - Period Porker

B+B (Buchmann and Buchmann) pioneered the German-led customising and tuning of premium brand high performance European motor cars in the mid 1970’s. Picking up the slack after the demise of many traditional coachbuilders in the 1960’s, B+B were not performing backstreet customisation, rather bespoke re-manufacturing for the wealthiest customers.
Founded by brothers Rainer and Dieter Buchmann in the oil-crisis era, The company was known under different names such as Buchmann und Buchmann, B+B Auto Exclusiv Service, BB Autotechnik and BB Auto.

Initially, the press and public were dubious of a seemingly decadent venture of adding features (and expense) to a vehicle that arguably didn't need improving; add to that, the 1973 Oil Crisis was making it hard to sell cars, period. The final price paid for a complete B+B conversion was more than double the cost of a standard model, but perversely this seemed to broaden the appeal to mega-rich buyers for whom money really was no object. In a matter of a few years B+B Auto Exclusiv established themselves as the name when it came to customised Porsches.

The company offered custom bodywork, interior and mechanical combinations, all of which were suitably enhanced over anything that was coming out of the Porsche factory at the time. Their home-brewed 911 Turbo Targa and 928 Targa were big hits and were regular cover stars in car magazines around the world. Although best known for the Porsches and the Mercedes-Benz CW311 concept car, (designed by Eberhard Schulz and engineered by B+B) they also modified production Mercedes-Benz, VWs (Golf and Polo) and various other marques. After important employees left the company (such as Schulz, who went on to start Isdera and turn the CW311 into the Imperator 108i), B+B folded in 1986.

This particular car, a standard European-market left-hand drive 911 3.3 Turbo, chassis no. 93A0070474, packed its bags and left the Porsche factory in spring 1980 and was sent straight to B+B in Frankfurt. Upon completion it was reputedly featured on B+B’s stand at the Geneva Salon having undergone a considerable upgrade programme, as you would probably expect of a car being displayed at the most important motor show of the year. The exterior featured B+B’s trademark 935-inspired flat nose, with reprofiled wings and Porsche 928 headlights. There were also re-profiled rear wings and doors that featured NACA ducts to help cool the engine, a new front spoiler and partial body-coloured rear spoiler. Painted Pearlescent White with silver Turbo graphics, it rode on 15-inch BBS wheels.
The interior was equipped with heated electric Recaro Sports seats trimmed with leather bolsters and pascha fabric centres, a white leather Momo steering wheel and a state of the art Blaupunkt 16-speaker stereo system. Mechanically it was enhanced to produce around 370bhp, the finished car costing comfortably in excess of double the list price for a standard 911 Turbo.

It started its 'career' as a plaything of royalty, having apparently been sold to a member of the House of Al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti ruling family. Despite being owned by royalty, it seems to have been far removed from being a glamorous gig; it spent most of its early life skulking in the underground car park of the Park Lane Hilton Hotel, still on its Kuwaiti plates, before being officially registered in the UK by its second owner on August 16th 1984. It went though two more owners prior being sold to the fourth and most recent custodian on May 1st 1987, at which point the odometer was reading a mere 17,000km (about 10,563 miles). It was sold in 2011 for just under £40,000 and with under 14,000 miles under it's wheels.
It may seem tacky and gauche to some, but personally I think it's a lovely period piece.

- Mr Fabulous

DP 911 - Kreidebleich Blitzschnell

I like to kid myself that I don't like the Porsche 911 concept. They've got the wrong engine, it's mounted in the wrong place, older ones have 'challenging' handling, they're derived from a Beetle blah blah yakkety schmackety...

But in reality, it's a imperfect concept that has been honed, tuned, massaged, tweaked and teased over the years into perfection. Well, perfection within the imperfect concept anyway, if that makes sense.

Taking that idea of imperfect perfection, German tuning company DP Motorsport have retrofitted a 1973 911 to lightweight specification.

How lightweight? Try a complete carbonfibre body. As in everything;  bumpers, engine cover, wings, doors, even the whale tail have all been replaced with the lightweight weave, while the windows and light covers have all been ditched in favour of lightweight perspex. The result?  A 1,918lb kerb weight against 2,380 - 2,943 lbs in standard trim.

But that's only half of the story. DP has mixed and matched components from the best of the classic 911 line, fitting a 310 bhp 3.6 flat six from the 993, fuelled, perhaps surprisingly, by carburettors, fitted to a  Porsche G50 transaxle. There's those gorgeous 16" Fuchs wheels on coilover suspension with adjustable antil-roll bars, with the Weissach parts bin pillaged once more for the brakes, from a 964-shape 911.

The interior? Well there's not much of it, with a full roll cage contrasting against black alcantara bucket seats and dash top. The doors have been completely gutted of their heavy window mechanisms to in the quest for ultimate lightness, replaced by more of that perspex, with racer-style sliding vents, handy for when you need to pay uour entrance fee into the Nordschleife. The result may be minimalist, but it does look 'right', to my eyes.

I still don't like 911s. Don't like that I can't afford most of them...

- Amazosan

Big Block Chevy-Powered Porsche 911...Road Warrior

Not your usual Porsche project, unless Max Rockatansky has a hankering for Stuttgart's finest we're not aware of.
Meet possibly the greatest affront to the snooty club of Porsche purists we've ever seen. Big-block Chevy up front, bagged frame in the middle, and twin-wheel axle out back. RUF eat your heart out; not so much a Yellowbird, more a Turkey Vulture with carrion on it's mind.
Not much in the way of info exists on the build, currently being performed by Diversified Performance Innovations in Dubuque, Iowa. The sacrificial lamb is a 1976 Porsche 911, and the 454ci V8 comes out of a Chevrolet C/K crew cab dually.

Mean as a junkyard dog...

The car has 4-link suspension, it sits on airbags, and the original chassis has been mostly a ladder frame. The old seats have been thrown out for some rat rod-style metal buckets. No room for the flat six it seems; the rear is all full of suspension and that axle.

And for all of you Porsche fans we see who are a' bitchin' and a' moanin' on the forums, below is the donor car - it's not a concours example, rest assured. We would also like to remind these fans that Ferdinand Porsche himself designed a twin rear wheel race car back in the 1930s, the Auto Union Type C/D. But of course as die-hard Porsche fans, you knew that anyway.

Now take the body from this:

...take the chassis and running gear from this...

...sprinkle some airbags...

...and some chassis work...

..said minimalist bomber seats...

...the ultimate in one-upmanship grills...

...and... well not too much else at the moment as it's very much still a work in progress. We don't know if DPI plans on fabricating arches to cover those four rear wheels, but if they do it will put all  7-foot width restrictions around the world on high alert. We'd like it if they keep the wheels uncovered; the words 'post-apocalyptic Stuttgart baha bug' keep getting banded around Amazo Towers. How about geeing up the Detroit Diesel V8 with a brace of turbos or whacking in a Duramax V8 with upswept zoomies; hell maybe even the diesel engine note from hell that is a Commer TS3 two-stroke diesel.
Perhaps they should be true to the 911's roots and rear-mount the engine, complete with angled exhaust stacks; nothing about this car should be subtle.
This car has all the ingredients to snaps necks back faster than a naked Lady Gaga doing handstands on a unicorn down your local high street. And just as likely to divide opinions.
Now you can unclench, Porsche fans...

2011 Singer Porsche 911 - The Wheel Re-invented

A classic 1970's Porsche? Not quite. Singer Vehicle Design take a pre-1994 911 and effectively re-engineer it for the 21st century, so I'm guessing you can take a last of the line 993 and give it the classic 70's look. I likes it a lot.

More HERE & HERE.